Happy International Women’s Day 2016! With the #IWD 2016 campaign theme #PledgeForParity calling for ways to collectively help women achieve advancement and leadership, please join us at two new exhibitions that open this week at RMIT Gallery – exploring how women are culturally conditioned to seek approval.

On Thursday 10 March 6-8 pm,Elizabeth Gower’s ‘he loves me, he loves me not’ will be opened by ethicist and author Dr Leslie Cannold, and Mithu Sen + Pushpa Rawta’s Quiet Voices will also be launched by journalist and author Sushi Das.

In the handwritten phrase he loves me, he loves me not Elizabeth Gower poses the question 21,319 times symbolically representing a lifetime of re-evaluation and wavering, resilience and resolve.

All welcome – please join us in celebration of hearing women’s voices.

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Wed, 24 Sep 2014 13:59:33 +0000underthetempesthttps://keysandquills.wordpress.com/2014/09/24/talking-taboo-feminism-and-gender-equality/Feminism is not a dirty word. Despite what we’re told in the media and all over the internet, the demand for gender equality is not a radical movement. I attended what was probably one of the most thought-provoking panels at the Bendigo Writers Festival this year, called A Woman’s Place. It was about feminism, gender roles and sexism, and featured panelists Leslie Cannold, Jane McCredie, and Jeff Sparrow.

There are two main reasons why I wanted to write about this session. Firstly, the panelists were so engaging to listen to and I would have happily sat for hours to hear what they had to say. Secondly, I have only recently (in the last couple of years, I suppose) begun to develop a much clearer understanding of women’s rights, gender equality and sexism, thanks in part to the Tumblr community. For me personally, the topics of conversation in this panel were the most intriguing as I had a pretty solid grasp on what was being discussed.

The first major topic raised with the panel was the former Australian Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and what she endured during her time in power. They talked about how Gillard gave hope to Australian women, with Leslie Cannold stating “The miracle of Julia Gillard was the ability to turn to our daughters and granddaughters, and say ‘You can do that, you can do anything'”. They then swiftly changed to how Gillard was treated differently because she was a woman. Jeff Sparrow said boldly “No other political leader was treated the same way as Julia Gillard.” Finally, they addressed the infamous misogyny speech. I believe it was Leslie Cannold who spoke about that speech going viral, and helping to kick-start the Everyday Sexism campaign, which provided the opportunity to liberate women who still feel the way that Gillard expressed in that speech.

The panel then turned their conversation towards the evolution of feminism and how many women are hesitant to identify as feminists because of the stigma surrounding feminism itself. I don’t know when these two things became synonymous with one another, but ‘feminist’ and ‘man-hater’ are absolutely not the same thing.

Feminism moved into sexism, and how society struggles to talk about things like sexism and gender equality. Jeff Sparrow noted that terms like ‘freedom’ and ‘equality’ are problematic in today’s society. The notion of gender equality is a relatively new concept in comparison to how things were 40-50 years ago. He says that in order to move forward and open up a discourse about sexism and gender equality, “we need to find a new way of talking about these things that move beyond the vocabulary that we’ve inherited.”

I think one of my favourite points raised in this discussion was about masculinity and the societal ideal that femininity and masculinity must be exclusive to females and males. Jane McCredie raised that the idea of masculinity can be “immensely oppressive,” mainly for males, but for females as well. One of the deepest quotes in this session was from Leslie Cannold, who stated “It’s soul destroying to watch boys become men.” She then detailed how her son used to love playing with glitter, but he would be made fun of because glitter is for girls.

The session began to wrap up not long after that, with many people asking questions to further prolong the dialogue and feed the crowded theatre. So, I’m going to end this recap with my favourite quote of the session from Jane McCredie.

A week is a long time in politics.

In in the last few days the Wikileaks party has undergone seismic changes due to a factional split and calls of hypocrisy, lack of democracy and autocratic control.

A third of the party council have quit, along with one of the candidates.

Four of the eleven Wikileaks party council members quit along with one of the candidates, Leslie Cannold. The straw that broke the camels back: the preferences for the senate races.

One would suspect that the lack of democracy and adherence to their own ideals of democracy and party internal rules would have been noticed earlier. So I suspect that what it is really over, is which other parties Wikileaks would align itself with, and there come the compromises and dealing with other political parties. As a party claiming to wanting to fill an oversight role in the senate they would need to do deals with other parties or just be completely shut out of the game at that level, unless of course they won 30 seats, which is unlikely in the first term at least.

So where does Wikileaks see itself aligned?

Well as a party essentially of protest, the strongest supporters would likely come from the left, third option voters, people who have wavered between ALP and The Greens largely, but have other political affiliations. And her lies the rub, The WA race put them head to head with Scott Ludlum.

If you look at our wonderful supplied info-graphic you will see the lay of the senate table.

The current make up of the senate:

The seats are colour coded to show which party holds it and in a few cases the names of the senators holding seats.

Seats with a dark border are up for reelection this senate cycle.

The first 3 states are where wikileaks party is running candidates.

NSW and VIC

NSW and VIC are quite similar, a reasonably even split between left and right, both have an ALP senator quitting, to run for the lower house. NSW has all 4 ALP senator up for re-election and both have a Wikileaks candidate running, both also have a Greens senator safe for another 2 years. So in both of these senate races Wikileaks will be able to draw support from traditional or wavering ALP voters and not greatly challenge the Greens current standing. Wikileaks might even get a few liberal / nationals voters or even inspire some donkey voters.

The Situation for WA is very different:

Scott Ludlum has his Greens senate seat on the line, and may lose support due to the new possibility for the third option voter, the Wikileaks party. The Greens in WA will likely be facing a backlash over The Greens carbon tax and the double whammy of a new third option party might be enough to send Scott Ludlum out of the senate.

And this is what has got the Green leaning faction of the Wikileaks party upset, along with the way preferences were debated over and then finally selected against the wishes of a significant minority (perhaps even a majority) of the party council and party members. The departing Wikileaks party members are even openly canvassing for Scott Ludlum now against their own former candidates.

TAS and SA

The situation with TAS is similar to SA , the Greens have 2 senators in each state and one is up for re -election.

Peter Whish-Wilson is up for re-election in TAS as Bob Brown successor, and no opposition from Wikileaks party.

Sarah Hanson-Young is up for re-election and no opposition from Wikileaks party.

Interestingly both Greens candidates (in SA and TAS) have double barrel surnames, oh yeah, that’s right a hallmark of inherited money, status and detachment from reality.

What is most interesting is the lack of candidates for QLD, perhaps they are deliberately standing aside.

This reference to the Greens party might make more sense once you consider how close Lesile Cannold is to The Greens. Cannold, the protégée of Peter Singer, a previous Greens candidate who co-wrote a book with Bob Brown the Greens founder and recently retired co-leader. She is effectively one person removed from the founder of The Greens party. Why didn’t she stand for the Greens in the first place? it’s entirely possible she entered the Wikileaks party to collapse it from the inside to prevent The Greens losing votes from their brainwashed masses. She used the phrase ‘white anted’ to attack the Wikileaks party, and of course this is a way of attacking your opponents, accusing them of using your own tactic.

I would not be surprised to see Leslie Cannold standing for The Greens in the not too distant future.

She has all the credentials; academic, feminist with some odd utilitarian ideals and best of all has helped collapse a third option rival from the inside. She has probably used the experience of the Wikileaks party to give her self a political party education.

So for the resigned part staffers and Party council members we can only refer you to the experiences people have had with Wikileaks.org and the whistle blowers who have been badly burnt by Assange; leopards don’t change their spots.

I would say this is the death-blow to the Wikileaks party getting a senate seat, but there are another two long weeks in politics to go.

So our commiserations to those people who put in a lot of effort trying to make a difference by attempting to enter the political system.

Changing the corruption in the political system from the inside is like preaching for chastity in a brothel.

Sean we can’t wait for the rage quit video, post one online and we’ll give you the slab of XXXX that Kevin Rudd promised us months ago, but still hasn’t delivered.

Politics: the lies, the games, the BS!

Since we mentioned a feminist and we were critical, we’ll quote another feminist to offer balance.

I hope this makes sense in context.

You can’t use politics to change politics, just like you can’t use your left hand to scratch your left elbow.

I’m usually the first to tut-tut when Twitter bursts into manic glee over political gaffes and stuff ups. It’s unseemly and undignified. We should endeavour to analyse policies and not occupy ourselves with the trivial nonsense of the sideshow.

I am, despite being a staunch conservative, not a fan of the Senate, the House of Party Hacks. Party officials and MP staffers are bequeathed plump spots on senate tickets in recognition for not stuffing up so hideously that the media noticed. I’m hard pressed to spot a single senator that I’d trust with sharp scissors.

But while most of them are merely mediocre in their quasi-harmless crankery and kookery, few cultivate their inner bonsai of malevolent mendaciloquence like South Australia’s Cory Bernardi.

Although I went hammer and tongs after Senator Bernardi (and his support for the notoriously racist Geert Wilders), I could easily have turned my invective towards the entire system. Senate ballots use a form of proportional voting with a single transferable vote. Candidates require a quota of votes (rather than a majority) in order to be elected. As a result, preferences become hideously important. The ballot uses block voting, meaning an elector can either choose to number each candidate individually or — far more commonly — an elector can simply nominate which party it trusts with its vote. The Senate Group Voting Ticket indicates how the party will allocate that vote if (more usually when) the party fails to secure enough votes to reach the next round of selection.

This becomes important down in the minor party end of the system. There aren’t enough people drinking paint thinners to cause, for example, the Socialist Alliance Party to enter parliament. When they come last in the first round, their votes are redistributed amongst the existing parties. The party who then holds the fewest votes is eliminated and so on and so forth. The GVT shows the pathway that the votes take through the system. If your party is eliminated, the votes you received will go to their second preference. If the second preference has already been eliminated, it will go to the third. And so on and so on.

In effect, the votes usually end up back with the major parties for seats 1 through 5. The sixth seat is usually the most interesting, often causing unusual results as a result of preference flow (for example, the Family First candidate, Steven Fielding, who entered parliament due to a preference deal to exclude the Greens).

Today’s drama all started when we discovered that the Wikileaks Party (founded by Julian Assange) had decided to preference lunar right parties over the mainstream parties, including the Greens. This browser-destroying picture covers the main ideas:

Kellie Tranter (Wikileak’s NSW Senate candidate shown above) claims that an administrative error caused this ordering. The party released the following announcement:

In allocating preferences between 53 other parties or groups in NSW some administrative errors occurred, as has been the case with some other parties. The overall decision as to preferences was a democratically made decision of the full National Council of the party. According to the National Coucil decision The Shooters & Fishers and the Australia First party should have been below Greens, Labor, Liberal. As we said, we aren’t aligned with anyone and the only policies we promote are our own. We will support and oppose the policies of other parties or groups according to our stated principles. [Source]

So while that might account for two of them, it doesn’t account for the rest.

While Julian Assange has the first preference in Victoria, Leslie Cannold (Award-winning columnist, ICMI exclusive & Tedx speaker. Noted among Oz’s top thinkers, Humanist of the Year 2011 — and contributor to the Australian Book of Atheism) is really the de facto first preference in Victoria. Cannold has a habit of considering any disagreement with her to be trolling. I was blocked after making the following comment:

When she was asked about NSW’s preferencing of crazy parties ahead of the Greens, she claimed that it was a matter for Tranter and the NSW branch. Naturally, she didn’t answer questions about Victoria’s preferencing:

Don’t expect Leslie Cannold to answer any questions about that…

But the biggest upset was the Western Australian branch preferencing the National Party ahead of the Greens. The primary Greens candidate, Scott Ludlam, has been a passionate supporter of Wikileaks and Julian Assange. (At the time of writing this, the WA GVT document had gone offline).

Wikileaks’ GVT tickets fit in well with the political suicide letters of the past year. In Western Australia, the primary candidate has been trying to downplay the relevance of preferences. Their lead candidate, Gerry Georgatos, tried to argue that the Greens were the ‘effective’ first preference of Wikileaks because minor parties — like the National Party — were not plausible candidates.

Which, of course, means that he doesn’t understand how preferential voting works. It is unlikely that the National Party won’t put in a good performance in the WA senate ballot. If it should happen that there are three candidates left for the sixth Senate position, National Party, Greens, and Wikileaks, and if Wikileaks has the fewest number of votes, the National Party will get the sixth position. Wikileaks knows that it’s going to split the Greens’ vote, so directing votes back to them via the National Party is just straight up ignorant (This is all said by somebody who rather hopes that the Greens Party will be mostly washed out after this election).

Faced with the fact that his party has done something spectacularly stupid, Gergatos treated the rest of us to a wonderful meltdown:

The Sex Party’s GVTs released today, on the other hand, do raise questions about whether they’ve actually got their heads screwed on.

In Victoria, the Labor Party was preferenced 60th; Greens 66th. Before the Sex Party’s votes make it that far, it will pass through Australian Voice (22nd), Stable Population Party (36th), the No Carbon Tax (Climate Sceptics) Party (44th), Australian Fishers and Lifestyle Party (48th), Shooters and Fishers Party (50th), One Nation (52nd), and the Katter Party (58th).

Preferencing One Nation (bozo racist party) ahead of the Greens and ALP is what has pissed off most of their supporters.

@vanbadham@aussexparty You are kidding? I did booth work for them last time on basis of damn good social justice platform. Can't believe it

A similar thing happened in NSW. This time, the Sex Party preferenced Greens (60th) over the ALP (66th), but the same weirdo parties appear:

Stable Population Party (10th), Australian Voice (22nd), Australian Motoring Enthusiast Party (35th), One Nation (39th), Non-Custodial Parents Party (44th), No Carbon Tax Party (46th), Australian Fishers and Lifestyle Party (50th).

We preferenced One Nation at #39, #40 and #41 on the ballot paper in NSW. In Victoria we put them at #52 and #53, in SA at #28. None of these positions can realistically get One Nation elected. It’s the ‘symbolism’ of putting them ahead of this party or that party, that is making the headline here.

For anyone who has ever watched the film Sophie’s Choice, they will understand the dilemma that libertarian parties face in elections these days. You have to put these lunatic parties somewhere! There is no option. If you want to run for the Senate, you have to number all the parties. The number of religious right parties has greatly increased in this election. There are about 10 of them. the Sex Party has a policy to preference these parties last and that’s what we did in all states. After that, it gets tough. I mean really…One Nation’s immigration policies are almost the same as Liberal and Labor parties these days! There’s hardly any difference in the lack of compassion to refugees between the two major parties and One Nation. They are a micro party, that are similar to the major parties on most social issues and they preferenced the Sex Party way, way down the list in all states, so there’s no love lost there.

But the system is the problem. I don’t want to have to put One Nation or Rise Up Australia or the Christian Democrats or Family First anywhere on our Group Voting Ticket! But I have to. Who is more worthy of our #42 spot….Family First or Australian Christians? Or One Nation?
Go figure. [Source]

Think what you like about the claim that One Nation’s immigration policies are almost the same as the Liberal and Labor parties, the focus of the question is: ‘For the Sex Party, how would supporters expect their vote to be handled?’ From the backlash, it appears that supporters do not feel that preferencing One Nation ahead of the Greens or Labor parties is appropriate. Effectively, the Sex Party has forced its supporters to vote below the line in order to get an appropriate outcome.

But the final point is more interesting: ‘Who is more worthy of our #42 spot’? The Sex Party — for some unknown reason — suggests that their only options were One Nation or a religious right party. It turns out they had two other options: Greens or ALP.

When confronted, the Sex Party made similar noises to the WA Wikileaks crew. They’ve done their ‘homework’ and don’t think One Nation will be able to benefit from the preference:

@PPantsdown@vanbadham we did our homework and are extremely confident that our GVT won't get One Nation elected. Happy to put money on it

Homework or not (if I weren’t against gambling — seriously, I’m a super prude — I’d take that wager just so I had some comfort when One Nation got the preferences), the better way to make sure One Nation doesn’t benefit from your preferences is not to preference them ahead of the Greens (which I say despite not being a fan of the Greens).

Smaller parties usually don’t have the resources to have a sensible crack at policies or strategy, but completely stuffing up the strategy takes a particular level of incompetence. Both the Sex Party and Wikileaks rather showed how amateurish the ‘micro parties’ can be. Perhaps more damning is that their spokespeople couldn’t come out and say: ‘We goofed up. It’s too late to fix, but we encourage supporters to vote below the line. We promise not to stuff up next time.’

In the meantime, spare a thought for me in the ACT where we have the worst candidates in Australia. I’d spoil my Senate vote (I’m likely to spoil my lower house vote; sorry, Andrew Leigh), but that just makes it easier for the dinguses. Seriously, we have Simon Sheikh of GetUp! fame running as the Greens’ candidate. We clearly need to abolish the Senate and replace it with Lords.

WikiLeaks have long said they “open governments”. But now the organisation’s founder, Julian Assange, is attempting to become part of government by launching The Wikileaks Party and running for the Senate.

With its leader currently hiding in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy, questions seem to surround the Wikileaks party and what this means for Assange’s case. But when you are voting for the Wikileaks Party, what are you actually voting for and how is it different from its publishing counterpart?

Matilda and Broede spoke to Dr Leslie Cannold, a Victorian Wikileaks Party candidate for the Australian Senate, about what the newly-formed party stands for and hopes to achieve.

Dr Cannold believes while Wikileaks.org and the WikiLeaks Party are separate entities, they still share values of transparency and individual privacy.

“What the WikiLeaks publishing organisation and the political organisation really want is for people to have privacy and control over their individual data,” says Dr Cannold.

This idea of privacy and control seems directly at odds with an organisation built on exposing private data that’s in the public’s interest. But Dr Cannold disagrees.

“We are talking about transparency and accountability for government,” she says.

“We are talking about us knowing for instance, that our private information is being collected by the US.”

Future WikiLeaks Party Senators would do their best to ensure the government is transparent and accountable, while ensuring ‘whistleblower’ organisations such as WikiLeaks remain legal and protected.

Dr Cannold says WikiLeaks has cause hostility across the world because their disclosures “have embarrassed some very powerful states”.

“The party are trying to get elected so we can ensure there is a legal and policy environment that is supportive of leaks in the public interest,” she says.

“Because we understand that a free media … is absolutely essential to a smooth-running democracy.”

In addition to privacy and whistleblowing concerns, the WikiLeaks Party’s agenda emphasises the importance of equality“between people regardless of sexual preference, regardless of gender”.

As it stands the WikiLeaks Party is the only campaigning party in Australia where 40 per cent of candidates are female.

This is in part why Dr Cannold, a women’s right and reproductive health expert, joined the WikiLeaks party.

“If I get into the Senate I will certainly be doing everything in my power to make sure the legal policy and attitudinal framework is completely supportive of treating everybody regardless of skin colour, sexual preference or gender equally,” she says.

Dr Cannold encourages women to enter politics saying.

“Go do it because it is very important,” she says.

“I mean that’s my message to young women no matter what it is they want to do.

“We need to be 50 per cent of the garbage collectors, we need to be 50 per cent of the educators, we need to be 50 per cent of the politicians.

“We are 50 per cent of the population.”

Listen to the full interview here:

—

Sophie Boyd is a Journalism student at RMIT who spends her spare time reading the news on SYN and writing whiny poetry. She tweets via @sophieboyd4.

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Mon, 05 Aug 2013 15:39:53 +0000Jeanhttps://jhaines6.wordpress.com/2013/08/05/julian-assange-launches-wikileaks-political-party-via-skype-in-london/https://futurepol.wordpress.com/2013/07/30/gallery-emergency-png-protest-melbourne-27-7-13/
Tue, 30 Jul 2013 00:18:45 +0000alnwdnhttps://futurepol.wordpress.com/2013/07/30/gallery-emergency-png-protest-melbourne-27-7-13/If you follow Future Politicians, chances are you’re informed about Australia’s contemporary refugee policies. Their most recent incarnation from Rudd Mark II has been a policy of permanent PNG re-settlement for all refugee boat arrivals. Some consider it especially heinous and some consider it a necessary evil.

Last Saturday, an emergency protest was drawn to voice opposition to this latest policy across Australia’s main capital cities.

Here’s what happened in Melbourne:

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Alan Weedon is a Melbourne based writer and photographer. He tweets @alnwdn

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Sun, 02 Jun 2013 23:28:40 +0000mishkagorahttps://mishkagora.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/the-abortion-of-reason/There is something about abortion that seems to encourage people to take leave of their senses. When it comes to the sacred cow of women’s rights, feminists totally lose the plot.

Last week, Frances Kissling, the former head of the absurd heretical group Catholics for Choice, declared that pregnancy “is not natural”. Now, I presume that if you have sufficient grasp of the English language to read and comprehend what I write on this blog I don’t need to go into the nitty-gritty of pregnancy and its cause. Suffice to say, if pregnancy is so unnatural perhaps we should all take vows of chastity and embrace the monastic life… or hitch a ride in the Tardis to twelfth-century southern France and join the Cathars.

Sadly, even the Tasmanian-born Crown Princess of Denmark has fallen prey to the sophistry of ‘abortion rights’, declaring that ‘reproductive rights’ are “at the core of human life”. She is quite correct, of course. Whether or not an unborn child survives its sojourn in its mother’s womb is “at the core of human life”. How this could ever justify the wanton destruction of that life is more difficult to grasp. Perhaps Her Royal Highness relinquished her common sense along with her Australian citizenship.

These examples, of course, reflect the calibre of the pro-choice movement as a whole. Dr Leslie Cannold, who has been hailed as one of Australia’s “most influential thinkers”, heads up Reproductive Choice Australia (RCA) which currently has a campaign to “end the stigma” of abortion.

According to RCA, abortion is “a fact of life”, part and parcel of a woman’s ‘right to choose’. This, it seems, is RCA’s definitive argument for legalising abortion at all stages of gestation. This is what lies behind their rejection of Senator Madigan’s attempts to end the government funding of sex-selection abortion. This is why they instead advocate “referral obligations” and “enforcement mechanisms” and the “requirement” that undergraduate medical training include abortions; that all federally-funded hospitals “regardless of faith-based affiliations” be forced to provide the “full range of reproductive health services” including abortions; and for a national curriculum of “comprehensive” sex education.

I’ll have to remember that cogent argument. It is, after all, the basis for society’s acceptance of abortion. Let me try it out: “Rape is a fact of life. We must ensure that it is safe, legal, and rare. To do this, we should provide more rape clinics, discard restrictions on the age of the rape vessel, and ensure that a man can never be prosecuted for a rape. We mustn’t shame men for their choice to rape women. It’s their bodies, after all. No one should tell them what they can and can’t do with their bodies. As a woman, I could never understand what it’s like to be desperate and have no real choice but to rape. It’s not an easy decision, and we mustn’t shame men by protesting against rape. Those who protest against rape and intimidate men about their choice ought to be arrested. We need special access zones so that men can rape without being harassed about what’s just a basic biological procedure. Hotels that have a conscientious objection to men raping women in their rooms should have mandatory referral obligations, and all federal government properties should be forced to provide rape rooms. Schools should also offer a curriculum that covers rape.” Convinced?

I can already hear the howls of outrage. How dare I compare rape, which is intrinsically wrong, to abortion, which some seem to think is a fundamental human right? I suppose I dare because I think for myself. I don’t accept abortion as a right any more than I accept rape as a right. Indeed, rape is easier to comprehend, because at least the rape victim isn’t usually one’s own child.

I can well believe that our government funds the balderdash of women’s rights through pointless academic organisations like the Gender, Leadership and Social Sustainability Research Unit, but what I find difficult to fathom is that ordinary men and women who have enough common sense to see that the emperor isn’t wearing any clothes don’t dare to exercise their grey matter on this topic. Abortion has become a no-go zone where otherwise sensible and confident people become meek conciliators for whom not offending ‘desperate’ women takes precedence over saving lives. Men trot out the line “I’m not a woman, so I could never understand…” to absolve themselves of responsibility, as if having a uterus magically turns women into moral arbiters and men into slaves bereft of opinions. And women defend their sex by suggesting that there is no choice, that they are victims of society and male coercion, as if women lose the responsibility of moral agency upon becoming pregnant. In one breath, there is no choice, but in the next it’s a woman’s right to choose. Talk about exercising a woman’s prerogative to change her mind! It seems women’s rights includes the right to talk utter nonsense and be treated as a great thinker.

How did we become so duped as to think that a woman who refuses to take responsibility for her own child, the child whom she has a duty to protect and nurture, should be given the sole legal choice of whether her child (who is also her sexual partner’s child) should live or die? How did we get to the point where maternal instinct and fatherly protectiveness are derided, where terminating a life with so much potential is hailed as a public good?

So, yes, let’s end the stigma. Let’s end the stigma of the truth. Let’s stop talking about “pregnancy termination” and “contents of the uterus” and “reproductive rights”. Let’s talk about conceiving a child, motherhood, and responsibility. Women can do better than kill their offspring when they find themselves in a tight spot. Forget the “my body, my choice” mantra. It’s your child, your responsibility. A real woman doesn’t respond to unanticipated motherhood by killing her child, and a society worth its salt doesn’t accord her the legal right to do so. Being a woman doesn’t give you any more right to kill than a man. That’s equality.

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Fri, 19 Apr 2013 14:16:22 +0000Bruce Everetthttps://rousingdepartures.com/2013/04/19/stupid-feminists/https://mishkagora.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/when-truth-and-ideology-collide/
Wed, 17 Apr 2013 04:47:08 +0000mishkagorahttps://mishkagora.wordpress.com/2013/04/17/when-truth-and-ideology-collide/I had an interesting encounter with Leslie Cannold on Triple J’s ‘Hack’ current affairs programme yesterday evening. I expected it to be somewhat slanted, but what I didn’t anticipate was the rude denial with which Cannold and the presenter responded to basic facts.

After a litany of bizarre claims and factual inaccuracies, Cannold stated that abortion is not legalin Tasmaniaup until birth. This is a barefaced lie. When I tried to point this out, the presenter cut me off, thanked Leslie Cannold, and hung up on me. They refused to allow the listeners to know the truth. They simply denied it.

So, I thought I’d assemble some home truths about the Reproductive Health (Access to Terminations) Bill with which Triple J’s listeners, not to mention Leslie Cannold and certain members of parliament, ought to acquaint themselves if they have any interest in being ‘informed’:

Abortion was legalised in Tasmania in 2001 with amendments to the Criminal Code Act 1924. It is legal at any state of gestation, i.e. up until birth, as long as certain conditions are met.

It is remarkably easy to meet those conditions. I myself picked up the Yellow Pages, looked up abortion under ‘A’ in the index, and found myself directed to various advertisements for ‘Pregnancy Termination Services’. This informed me that my privacy is “assured”, that everything can be done in the “one visit – same day procedure”, and that “bulk billing” is available. With one telephone call, I also established that a referral isn’t required as there are two doctors on site.

Michelle O’Byrne has herself stated that the changes to the law are so that women can do tests for “genetic abnormalities” that aren’t apparent prior to 20 weeks. We all know that it’s murder to tear a baby limb from limb, even if it’s premature, but according to Ms O’Byrne this should be legal as long as the dismemberment causing death occurs in the womb, and especially if it has an abnormality picked up at the 20-week scan, such as a club foot or a cleft palate (both of which can be corrected post-birth I might add).

But this legislation goes even further than killing off disabled children. It allows abortions for social and economic reasons. It’s true that two doctors will have to sign off on this (as they already do – you may want to re-read point 2). Not very many people think that this is a good basis for having an abortion; but, even if you do, a doctor (whose expertise is a woman’s reproductive system) cannot certify social and economic circumstances. They are not social workers or financial planners. Obviously, the pregnant women themselves are the best judges of their social and economic circumstances, which means that the legislation is merely providing a loophole for abortion on demand that unscrupulously transfers responsibility to doctors.

An unborn child at 39 weeks gestation is 16 weeks older than a premature baby born at 23 weeks. It is legal even now to abort a child up to 42 weeks – babies are considered ‘on time’ if born between 37 and 42 weeks – and it will be legal to do so for social and economic reasons if this legislation passes.

150 metres in Hobart goes a long way. You can walk from the abortion clinic in the heart of the CBD – which is unmarked, by the way, so I’m not sure how you’re supposed to know you’re in the access zone – around the corner into Macquarie Street (which is the main drag for those of you who don’t know Hobart), up to Harrington Street (where there’s a Catholic church on the corner), down to Collins Street (where you could – at present, but perhaps not in a few weeks – attend a pro-life book launch at Fuller’s Bookshop), and back up to the Victoria Street clinic all the while remaining in the access zone.

Obnoxious behaviour such as intimidation, harassment, and obstruction is already an offence. Duplicating the law isn’t going to enforce it better, and it hasn’t needed to be enforced as there isn’t a history of people protesting outside abortion clinics in Tasmania, something even the Fertility Control Clinic has admitted publicly in writing.

The legislation also gives the police special powers to detain, search, confiscate equipment, and arrest without warrant. This means a photographer doing a spot of street photography or perhaps taking photos for a news interview with a solicitor outside his premises – yes, the abortion clinic shares its address with a legal practice! – can be detained and searched, have her very expensive camera equipment confiscated, and then hauled down to the local nick. (And, no, the photographer would not know she was in an access zone. You may want to re-read point 6.)

It requires a counsellor, whether paid or not, to refer if they have a conscientious objection even if the pregnant woman isn’t considering an abortion. So this means that an unpaid volunteer who is asked for advice about continuing a pregnancy (not ending it) can be fined $32,500 for not referring her to someone who supports abortion. In effect, it means that anyone who conscientiously objects to abortion cannot provide counselling to a pregnant woman and must make a referral that violates their conscience if a pregnant woman should seek their counsel. Furthermore, given that a counsellor can’t tell if a woman is pregnant by looking at her, the implication of this is that people who conscientiously object to abortion aren’t allowed to be counsellors. Doctors face a similar potential loss of livelihood.

10. That ‘extremely personal decision’ that some people think isn’t anyone else’s business is everyone else’s business. Apart from abortion killing a defenceless member of our society, etc., etc., it became our business when the government decided to fund abortion via Medicare.

I could go on, but everything I’ve seen in the last few weeks suggests that my words will fall on deaf ears. Anyone who saw the pro-choice rally last Sunday would have thought that abortion was still illegal and that women were being thrown in gaol by the cartload. But the supporters of this Bill won’t allow the truth to get in the way of ideology. That’s why they’ve created an exclusion zone around abortion clinics to protect the abortion industry, special police powers to intimidate ordinary citizens, and exorbitant fines and gaol terms to stifle dissent. God forbid that a woman exercising her legal choice should be presented with the truth that she’s about to make a deadly mistake, that she’s about to kill her own flesh and blood!

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Mon, 24 Dec 2012 21:24:43 +0000Quieter Elephanthttps://quieterelephant.wordpress.com/2012/12/24/a-penny-for-your-thoughts/Transitions are great times to be reflective. And no – that wasn’t a geek joke. OK – perhaps it was… sometimes I think physics would have been so much more fun at school if I was teaching it.

Whether it’s leaving high school; getting married; getting divorced even; having a child; losing a friend or relative; the end of a millennium… or even the drawing to a close of a “normal” year – the perceived leaving behind of one state and the contemplation of the opportunities ahead seems to be a natural time for us to be a little introspective and contemplative. But Auld Land Syne is just an excuse to drink – let’s be fair! And while we’re at it – what’s that iPhone bagpipes App all about FFS?!

As I walked the dog this morning, in the rainy We(s)t Coast of BC, I was in quite a good mood. A great friend and ex-colleague always quipped that I wasn’t truly happy unless I was miserable, so this good mood was worthy of self-exploration as the rain dripped off my nose.

2012 was certainly an eventful year. I changed jobs – leaving my old employer only a few weeks before the annual bonus was awarded. I like to think I do things because it’s right, not because it’s necessarily advantageous to me. I recently watched a TED talk about the shame question around abortion. Worth a few minutes of your life, no matter which side of the debate you stand on: http://bit.ly/WBoCwb

Anyway, it taught me a couple of things: (i) even great thinkers can over-simplify and (ii) the wartime king of Denmark was my kind of person!

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out– Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out–Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–Because I was not a Jew.

Ms Cannold is very careful to show nothing but respect for Niemöller in her TED talk, but points out that though the self-preservation argument is sound (if I don’t stand up for you, why would you stand up for me?) it is not enough. She points to Pricess Di’s stance in the early days of AIDS awareness. Making a public, positive stance and embracing (literally) people who were suffering from HIV and full-blown AIDS. De-stigmatising the disease and making it acceptable to talk about. De-shaming it. Allowing sensible debate and research available to everyone.

Source BBC: 1989: Diana opens Landmark Aids Centre

And then Cannold mentioned the king of Denmark, who allegedly took a moral stance during the war. (Funny, don’t you think? “The” war! There have been so many before and since…). When Hitler demanded the Danes should force Jews to wear yellow stars, he is alleged to have said “sure – along with me and every other Dane”. According to Snopes – the myth busters, this isn’t actually true, but it is true that King Christian X of Denmark and Denmark as a nation did indeed protect many Jews during this particularly loathsome era of European history. Can you imagine the cojones it would take to do that? With no way of knowing what the reaction might be? Just because it was the right thing to do. Now that, dear reader gets my attention.

So – this walk in the park I was mentioning. It was wet and miserable this morning – hence my good mood, I suppose. The local park has several benches overlooking the duck ponds. On less damp occasions, or when people just don’t give a shit and need a rest, they are occupied by the gentle folk of White Rock watching the world go by. My dog on the other hand likes to pee up them. As she performed this doggy version of Twitter (I just went to the park – sniff me sometime!) I noticed that someone had left two pennies on the lower brace of the bench. Sure enough there were two on the other side too. I prodded with a finger to make sure they weren’t glued on (the difference between a statement and a prank).

Ha – so this got me thinking. What was the statement? I have too many coins in my pocket? If you really need a penny take it? Art? Interesting…

As I walked around the ponds I found the same “installation” on every bench but one. Here’s Spiketta the devil-dog guarding the last but one bench…

Anyway, I returned home in fine spirits, ultimately pleased that I felt loved by those I love, and satisfied with most if not strictly all the choices I had made in 2012. And someone out there was doing weird, unexplained stuff in my manor because they felt like it. I like it that I’m not the only one.

Here’s wishing you a great 2013, and comfort in the choices you’ll make, still ahead of you…

Last Christmas I read The Book of Rachael, Leslie Cannold’s debut novel about an imagined sister of Jesus. This year veteran novelist Colm Tóibín speaks in the voice of Jesus’ mother.

The Book of Rachael wasn’t completely satisfying as a novel, but it painted a convincing picture of what it may have been like to be poor or outcast or female in Jesus’ times, and entered convincingly into a world view where tales of miracles could be true without being true as we understand the word.

The Testament of Mary has different fish to fry – my trouble is I can’t tell what those fish are. There are passages that are pretty well straight retellings of incidents from the Gospel of John: the raising of Lazarus and the ecce homo. Other familiar scenes – the crucifixion, the miracle at Cana – are recast in ways that in effect claim that the Gospel is lying. For most of the book I felt I was reading notes towards a novel, something that would be fleshed out once a bit more research could be done, and a few crucial decisions made: is Mary’s son a charlatan followed by desperate misfits, and if so how does that fit with his bringing a corpse back to life? why are the Romans and ‘the Elders’ intent on killing him and all his followers, and in that context why does the head Roman try to save him? why have Mary flee the scene of the crucifixion before the actual death – might there be a less crude way of saying that the Gospel of John isn’t historically accurate?

I suspect that the heart of the piece is in something Mary says to the unnamed man who explains to her that Jesus died to save the world: ‘when you say that he redeemed the world, I will say that it was not worth it. It was not worth it.’ I read this as an emphatic repudiation of a 1950s Irish Catholic world view, and I go, like, ‘Whatever!’

It’s not a novel. It’s not an informed engagement with the gospels – it seems to assume, for example, that John’s gospel claimed to be a historical rather than a theological document. It’s not effective as polemic, because the thing it opposes is presented as arbitrary and fanatical. I don’t know what it is. Maybe Colm Toíbín felt that it was important to show his colours in the current struggle between fundamentalism and science, etc. OK, it does that – but I’m surprised the commissioning editor didn’t return the manuscript with a note: ‘Needs more work.’

First up, a reminder that the Educate Congress campaign keeps rolling – we just hit 100 supporters of the effort to send a copy of the current Our Bodies, Ourselves book to all members of the U.S. Congress! We’re about 20% of the way to our goal now, so still need your support!

At Vanderbilt University, a campus map of places where breastfeeding is welcome. Now, because of state law, women are actually allowed to breastfeed anywhere women are allowed to be. So I don’t really like the “breastfeeding welcomed here” language of the campaign *because regardless of personal feelings of welcome, it’s allowed everywhere.* It probably is nice to know which places aren’t likely to result in hassle, though, and some of these places have spaces set up where women can do so privately if desired. It’s nice that any effort is being made to be more supportive, though, and I hope that managers of the many, many women who aren’t in office jobs at a university are being supported in taking the break time necessary to make use of these spaces.

“Eventually I reached a dangerously low point, and, in my despondency, began going to the campus’ sexual assault counselor,” the woman wrote in The Amherst Student. “In short I was told: No you can’t change dorms, there are too many students right now. Pressing charges would be useless, he’s about to graduate, there’s not much we can do. Are you SURE it was rape?”

In “Why I am Pro-Life” at the New York Times, Thomas L. Friedman writes (emphasis added):

In my world, you don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and be against common-sense gun control — like banning public access to the kind of semiautomatic assault rifle, designed for warfare, that was used recently in a Colorado theater. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and want to shut down the Environmental Protection Agency, which ensures clean air and clean water, prevents childhood asthma, preserves biodiversity and combats climate change that could disrupt every life on the planet. You don’t get to call yourself “pro-life” and oppose programs like Head Start that provide basic education, health and nutrition for the most disadvantaged children. You can call yourself a “pro-conception-to-birth, indifferent-to-life conservative.” I will never refer to someone who pickets Planned Parenthood but lobbies against common-sense gun laws as “pro-life.”

I think it is time to leave poor people alone; to use our power to protect them from our insatiable curiousity about their lives through actively fighting with them for social policies that raise their standard of living and education and gives them more access to resources and power. Replicability may be a founding principle of science but after a point we move to redundancy. If we still feel the need to ask questions of the poor, perhaps we can let them guide the way. This means we give up our ‘intellectual superiority’ and become servants to the poor, asking the questions to which they want answers. This may mean less articles for me to review for lofty (and not so lofty) journals but it may mean that more of what we write gets read by more people, and more of what we read educates us in a meaningful way that makes social change possible.

Via Melissa McEwan at Shakesville, Mourdock Ain’t Sorry, You Losers! – because honestly, the idea that your deity is hands-on enough to give you a rape baby but not enough to bother preventing your rape makes your deity seem kind of egregious.

There’s no clip I can find to embed, but on this week’s Real Time with Bill Maher, panelist Chrystia Freeland made the point nobody ever wants to make, but which I believe – rape exceptions for abortion are hypocritical from a purely pro-life standpoint. Freeland explained that if your objection to abortion is that life is sacred and once an egg joins a sperm it has an inherent, unrevokable right to exist, the circumstances of the conception *do not matter.* I would carry this thought through to say that if you then say that women who have been raped have a right to abortion because they didn’t choose to have sex, or because of the violation of the rape, then that tells us that your anti-abortion position hinges on whether women have been punished enough, a “you made your bed, you have to lie in it” perspective that is more about imposing your own ideas about how much women should be made to suffer and what consequences you think they should be forced to experience for having sex, rather than a pure idea about the sanctity of life.

I have been looking outside of online documentary for more ideas surrounding “Working for the Man”, including reading Leslie Cannold’s book What, No Baby?. It explains how contemporary Australian women are derailed by expectations of balancing motherhood and work. Cannold separates her book into demographics: 20s, 30s, 40s and choices surrounding each age (such as marriage, travel, unplanned pregnancy, promotion). She channels the public agenda through individual experiences, which is essentially the aim of my project. However, What, No Baby? has quite a feminist voice and I decided in an earlier post that I wanted to avoid this exclusivity in the online documentary. I like the Lichtenstein-style cover, illustrating the submissive women, and would think about including such a scheme but as I do not have a design background I am thinking a lot more conceptually and technically about the site’s presentation.

What, No Baby? cover art.

Audience

I intend to create this online documentary project for Australians of mixed sex over 25 (those already established in the working world). A younger audience can participate but in an effort not to simplify the issue, with ‘flashy’ aspects attractive to younger users, it will be designed for adults. This is a serious informative online documentary which means I will have to work on the sense of voice across the narrative – something omnipresent and educational but not too dry. The great thing about online documentary is the ability to pull together a story from a huge variety of material, and in a non-linear way, so I don’t think that I necessarily need to push an agenda to a certain audience (e.g. Australian women 25-40) as each user creates their own experience. That being said, this is a project designed for adults, and could even appear on a news site, and parts of it broadcast over television – there is a flexibility to share the project.

Technical feasibility

Questions surrounding this area of the project include: Can the project really be carried out? Will it benefit intended users? How will it work with existing technology? Can it be upgraded?

After spending the semester looking at existing projects, I feel like I have a strong idea of what sort of technology is required for this work. Nevertheless, I do not possess the necessary expertise to fully implement it. “Working for the Man” is a feasible project – it involves speaking to real people about real problems. Although it may be difficult to secure interviews with characters in high positions this does not stop the project from having an impact. In terms of the technology itself, I feel that if it becomes outdated the project could be transformed for new technologies – I have already discussed how it might work for tablet. Overall it will benefit users as it is very interactive, via social media and the site itself, and contains updated quantitative information (statistics etc.) as well as insightful and original characters.

While working on this type of project, it is also important to consider its economic feasibility. This is free student work, but in the real world would this require a sponsor? What could be implemented given the resource constraints? It would take a lot of work to put it together and require a team of different-skilled people: designers, journalists, producers, etc.

Quentin Bryce, patron of NCWA and first female governor-general in Australia.

At the Sydney Writers’ Festival earlier this year I embarrassed myself and Leslie Cannold, author of this book about an imagined sister to Jesus, by singing her a snatch of Dory Previn:

Did he have a sister, a little baby sister,
Did Jesus have a sister?
Was she there at his death?

I was expecting to find in the novel the kind of revisionist pleasure provided by ‘Did Jesus Have a Baby Sister‘ (the link takes you to the song on YouTube). But it turns out to be quite a different beast: it doesn’t so much ring changes on the biblical story as set out to imagine what life would have been for a spirited young woman in the time of Jesus, using the biblical story as a kind of baseline. There is some revisionism, of course: the virgin birth is explained – almost incidentally – by the familiar Roman soldier story; as a young man, Joshua/Jesus comes home late at night smelling of alcohol and women; and there’s an excellent account of the raising of Lazarus. But the aim isn’t to debunk or mock.

It’s years since I read any theology, apart from Tissa Balasuriya’s Mary and Human Liberation. Leslie Cannold’s approach to the biblical narrative goes quite a bit beyond Balasuriya’s ‘hermeneutics of suspicion’, and she certainly doesn’t take up his vision of Mary (here called Miriame) as a revolutionary figure. I doubt if many scholars would take seriously the book’s version of how Joshua came to go on his preaching mission (he was looking for a woman who was pregnant to him, who had been consequently sold into prostitution by her father). It’s clear from this and other examples that this is not an attempt at historical excavation. Such pernicketiness aside, I don’t think I’ve ever read an account of the Jesus story that brings home more clearly what it meant to be poor or outcast or female in those times. That was the main pleasure of the book for me, rather than an engagement with the characters, who never quite came completely to life, despite even the scattering of cheerful sex scenes. Still, the pleasure was considerable.

But it’s November, and a sonnet is compulsory, even though it may create even more embarrassment all round than an off-key rendition of Dory Previn:

Sonnet 5: Where were the women?
These days I think of the Last Supper
and wonder where the women were
when Jesus foretold in that upper
room his foes would soon bestir
themselves and take his life. Who cooked
and shared that meal, were overlooked
by gospels and two thousand years
of art and preaching? More than spears
such silence pierces the hearts
of half the world. Oh they were there,
not just their sinful, perfumed hair
or veils, or wombs and other parts.
They’ve always held up half the sky.
Their absence is a stupid lie.

Last week I attended the Brisbane Writers’ Festival, firstly watching a Skype link-up with Philip Pullman, acclaimed author of “The good man Jesus and the scoundrel Christ”. This thoughtful man, brought up in the Anglican faith and now a non-believer, is still driven by an underlying search for truth and he was a delight to meet online. Host Scott Stephens, online editor of the ABC website and presenter of the ABC series of Compass, “Life’s Big Questions”, asked a range of perceptive questions. Pullman has used the novel plot of twins, Jesus and Christ, to change the way we think about religion and God. It seems to me that Pullman has lost hope in the traditional concept of God and the possibility of His Kingdom coming on Earth and is searching for answers. Maybe no-one has told him that there is actually a higher view of God as found in Christian Science, who is infinite goodness, who fits perfectly into the 21st century and whose kingdom is obtainable right here and now, starting within our thought and leading to our actions and our well-being.

The second session I attended, hosted by Paul Barclay, ABC radio journalist and broadcaster, centred on discussion by three thinking women, Jane Caro, Mridula Koshy and Leslie Cannold, around the subject of “The trouble with feminism”. I came away enlightened and pleased that there had been agreement between the panel that there has been some progress towards equal rights for women in the Western world, and that the term ‘feminism’ really needed to be redefined to include men as well as women, and was actually more in the line of ‘human rights’, or a new view of men and women.

And on the ABC’s Q&A last night there was spirited debate on a range of issues from politics to feminism, and media ownership to pornography. Panel, audience and Tweeters were earnest and witty, but I felt that all were yearning for a better world ….. a better view of mankind perhaps?

However, debates and our everyday interactions are not always conducted with kindness and willingness to listen to the other’s viewpoint. I found this ancient native-American story that I’d love to share here, as it points out that we have a choice. Which wolf will you feed in your thoughts and interactions?

Two Wolves

One evening an old Cherokee told his grandson about a battle that goes on inside people. He said, “My son, the battle is between two “wolves” inside us all.One is Evil. It is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self­pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.The other is Good. It is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.”The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?”The old Cherokee simply replied, “The one you feed.”

With the current scientific research providing proof of the effect of spirituality on our health and well-being (and surely, on our world view as well), the media has the exciting task of seeking out and publishing these results and interviewing these thought-leaders, so that the public is aware how our good thoughts and actions are health-giving and can transform individual lives, as well as human affairs around the globe. This is the demand of our times.

I found the spiritual perspective in this Christian Science Monitor article inspirational. Check out how adopting the ‘good wolf’ mentality can transform our communications and their results in “Opinions, reason and communication”.